A Wanderer at heart
by Akashru
Summary: Imagine a story where a smart Ash exists. One who does not want to become a pokemon master in the conventional way but just wants to travel. Explore the world, find new pokemon, research. This is the story of that Ash with a non traditional starter. AU , this does not share much if anything at all with cannon except for the main character's name and the pokemon world itself.
1. Chapter 1 The journey begins

A wanderer at heart – A Pokemon Fanfiction

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.

A.N: Sorry for starting with an Author's note. I am just an avid reader of pokemon fanfiction and as the saying goes, if you really badly want to read a fanfiction and it is not written, then write it yourself. So well, here's my attempt.

I also wanted to mention that any reviews about the grammar or language are appreciated since I am trying to improve my language skills. Apart from that, some things in this story will be different. They will be explained but for the most part, a lot of the stuff in the fanfiction should seem similar. It does not follow canon in any manner except for the world and the name of the main character. (AU)

Chapter 1

It was a pleasant morning. It was still early and he was glad that he got up on time. Checking his travel plans again had lasted very late last night. He freshened up and went down. He wished his mother good morning while meeting her for his breakfast.

She was fussing over him "You are going out from today. Have you taken everything? Call me everyday …." but he was lost in his own world already planning on most of his major pokemon. He was imagining himself travelling around the world with his Venasaur peacefully. He snapped out of his trans to listen to his mother's last words "..to change your underwear every day." This made him blush red and Ash said "Mom, I'm a little grown up now and I will remember that. You don't have to remind me of that everytime I go out. It is embarrassing."

His mother looked at him with a sad wistful look on her face and a small smile saying "I'll miss you a lot Ashy. You'll always be my little boy no matter how much grow. I will always be your mom and remind you. Anyway, it's getting late. Check your inventory once again and then go to Samuel's lab to get your pokemon. I'll meet you there."

Ash nodded and went up to do his inventory check. He was travelling into the wilds and did not want to stick close to major cities. So he needed a lot of food which he had in a special compartment, a few potions, a few berries that he had collected, an antidote just to be safe, his camping gear in another storage compartment, two huge water canteens which were in another storage compartment and a poke-gear which would help him keep in touch with his mother even out in the wilderness. His outfits were also there and packed.

Finally satisfied with his gear, he wore his backpack and went downstairs. He could hear his mom washing the dishes in the kitchen and shouted to her "Mom, I'm heading out to the Oaks. I will wait there for you to see me off or if you are not there then I'll come home and see you before I leave."

Hearing his mom's acknowledgement, he went on to the Oak's lab. He was excited to get his first pokemon and head out. Lost in his dreams, he kept walking when before long he reached the boundary fences of the Oak ranch. He was always amazed by the ranch. It was so huge. A huge expanse of grassland type land structure with a lot of thick trees guarding it at the edges. These are home to a large amount of clearings and small ponds and one huge lake whose sprinkling blue could be seen peeking through the thicket of trees. It was amazing and home to a huge number of pokemon.

He finally made it to the door of the lab. He knocked and waited. The lab door was opened by an assistant named Julia. She said "Come in Ash. The others are already here. They are waiting in the lab."

Ash scratched the back of his head and asked her "Am I late. I thought I was on time. Did I keep the professor waiting too long?"

Julia smiled and waved his concerns away saying "Na Ash, you are on time. It's just that the others were too excited and came early. The professor hasn't arrived yet. Come in."

Ash nodded his head and thanked her. He slowly walked to the lab. He had been to the lab many times and knew his way around. The assistants were slowly starting to trickle in with two people already there. Julia was walking with him and he asked her "So how come you are early today. Usually you arrive around 10 AM. Today its only 8 30 AM and you are already here?"

"The professor needed some help with the pokemon. There are only three of the typical starter pokemon and four people starting." Hearing this Ash tensed since he was now not sure he would get his bulbasaur. "He needed some way around it and also needed help setting up the various paperwork and items required to set you off as trainers. So he called me and Alan early to assist him since we are dealing with this part of the work in our training to be a pokemon professor."

Seeing as they reached the lab, Ash nodded to her. He just entered to hear "And look who is here! The late guy finally deigns to join us. I am surprised you got up in time to go out."

Ash never wanted to hear Gary's taunt as the first thing in the lab, but not everyone gets their wish. He replied "And a not so good morning to you too Gary.". He nodded to the other two trainers starting out with him and offered them a smile as they put on irritated faces at hearing Gary. The two of them were twins, Lily and Reynold who was known as Rey to most people since Reynold was a mouthful. They would probably be travelling together since they were somewhat incomplete without the other. Also both of them wanted to be Pokemon masters and were tired of listening to Gary constantly boasting.

The others barely returned the nod before Professor Oak entered and beckoned them to enter the other room. In the other room there was a podium with three pokeballs on them. Apart from the various machinery around the room, there was also a bag full of red slab like things that were called pokedexes. He was not usually allowed into this room and Ash took a look around with an interested eye.

Professor Oak said "Good morning everyone. Congratulations on beginning your pokemon journey today. I am happy that it's the four of you. I can be informal and not worry about the pokemon I am giving you. All four of you are promising students of mine. Thank God."

Rey laughed while Lily smiled at him blushing at the praise. Ash smiled at him while Gary said "Move on gramps, I'm waiting for my pokemon."

Oak looked at Gary and said "Gary, you will get your pokemon. Don't be so impatient. I swear, if I didn't know that you loved pokemon more than anything, I would probably not give you a pokemon due to that arrogant attitude of yours. I would fear for it." Gary scowled while Oak sighed looking at him. Oak said "Now, don't need to scowl kiddo. Here we go. Let's pick the pokemon. Now as you can see there are only three starter pokemon. Ash gets the fourth pokemon. It's not a traditional starter but just as good."

Ash just swallowed a lump at that. He did not get a good feeling but he knew that professor Oak would not intentionally harm him or set him back. He would only wish him good with how close their families were. So he nodded while putting on a brave face.

Oak continued "Before we pick your pokemon, each of you know what a pokedex is. If you don't by this point of time, then you should not be going out. Anyway, here is one for each of you. It's registered for you and is your identity."

Saying this he handed out a standard red coloured pokedex to all four of them while Julia watched from the side-lines. Then he said "Ok, pick a pokemon each kids, who is going first?"

Rey stepped forward saying "I'll go first prof." He picked a pokemon with a flame pattern on it and released a charmander. It was small and looked like a small orange lizard that stood on two legs with a flame on its tail. He bent down to its size to make himself seem smaller and asked "Do you think you want to come with me? I want to become a pokemon master and want to become the strongest trainer there is. If that is your aim, then you can come with me."

Charmander nodded and let out a small flame from its nostrils. Rey looked at it and nodded telling the professor that he had chosen. Seeing this, lily stepped forward as Rey and charmander stepped back with charmander walking alongside Rey. Lily repeated the procedure with bulbasaur.

As she stepped back Gary stepped forward and said "Finally. I get the pokemon that I wanted. This is awesome." Saying this, he picked the third pokeball. From this pokeball emerged a small turtle. He bent down and undergoing a 180 asked it "Hey, I am a young kid aiming to be one of the strongest trainers alive. I hold interest in a lot of things pokemon. And I love your species. I am going to travel to achieve those dreams. Are you interested in travelling with me?" Seeing squirtle nod, he rubbed its head and stepped back with squirtle walking with him.

All three of them turned towards the professor and Ash looking to see what Ash's pokemon was. The professor told them "Ash's pokemon is still on its way. You all can leave now if you want unless you want to wait for him."

The three of them looked a little sad for him at that. But they were too excited to begin their journey. Ash told them "Have fun on your journey people. You don't have to wait for me. Becoming a pokemon master is a tough task. I'll see you along the way somewhere." They clapped him on his back and Rey said "Don't worry Ash. You have our numbers. If you need us, call and we will do our best to help you." Lily nodded while Gary just snorted and said "I know you don't have the aim to become a pokemon master but damn Ash, I want to challenge you to a battle. I will battle you when I see you. You better not disappoint me."

Ash just smiled and nodded to them. They slowly went out with Ash and Oak following them to see them off. After waving them off, Ash turned to Oak and asked "Prof, when is my pokemon coming?"

Oak told Ash "Your pokemon is already here Ash. It is just a very rare pokemon. The less people who know what pokemon you have, the better. I don't trust Gary and the others not to blabber their mouth off at the wrong place if they knew your pokemon. You could be hunted for it."

Ash gulped and asked Oak "Which pokemon is it?"

Oak replied "It's a lapras Ash. It was separated as an egg with the rest of its pod hunted. They left these waters and now it's all alone. It is just ready and of fighting age. It is a traveller's dream pokemon. It loves travelling across water bodies. It is one of the strongest water type pokemon in the world but doesn't generally like fighting. It is also extremely intelligent."

Ash haled the professor mid lecture saying "Professor, I did read about lapras you know? Can I talk to the lapras?"

Oak handed Ash a pokeball. Ash silently released the pokeball. Out of that pokeball came a small blue pokemon that was about five feet tall. It was a blue pokemon with a long neck, a dinosaur of old type face and a hard shell on its back. It had four flippers instead of feet and huge eyes. It looked the picture of innocence as it gazed at him. Ash turned to it and said "I wanna travel the world and become strong enough to protect myself and my family from outsiders. Do you wanna travel with me?"

The lapras looked between Oak and Ash. Oak nodded to it and it slowly made its way to Ash and snuggled against him. Looking at him it nodded as it cooed at him in an affirmative. The intention could not have been clearer.

Ash returned lapras after letting her know and said "So that's that professor. Is there anything else?"

Oak nodded and said "Yes there is Ash. Looking at how rare the lapras is, you need to be careful about releasing lapras to the public until you are strong enough. Also stay away from too much of city battles unless you are strong enough. You do not want people to know you have a lapras. Absolutely."

Ash nodded saying "I'll take care professor. I'll be careful."

Oak said "Then that is all Ash. You can take care of yourself, you can take care of lapras and enjoy travelling around. This lapras is special but I will let you find out why it is special. Enjoy Ash." Saying this, Oak walked with Ash to the door. On the way to the door Ash said "I will give you a call when I get to viridian professor. Also, do you have any books on how to take care of water pokemon in general and lapras in particular?"

Oak slapped his forehead and said "I knew I was forgetting something. Wait I'll get it for you." Saying this Oak vanished inside the house leaving Ash near the door. Ash waited near the door for the professor to arrive. The professor came back with three discs in his hand. He said "One is on lapras in particular, another is just how to handle a pokemon from its almost baby stages to its adult form and the third is on water pokemon who cannot leave the water. Load them into your pokedex and return them." Ash did so and thanked Oak. Oak said "Well Ash, that's all. Have a good journey and let me know of what you have seen. I will get updates here on my computer but hearing about it live is always more interesting."

Ash nodded and said "Thank you prof. See ya later. I'll probably be leaving now after meeting mom."

Oak nodded once finally and went back to work. Ash went out to find his mom waiting for him. He slowly walked towards her and they started walking towards route one. She asked him "What pokemon did you get Ashy?" Ash said "I got a lapras mom. I'll show lapras to you once we are more secluded and near a pond." Delia nodded saying "Ok, but why the rare pokemon? Lapras is almost extinct. I'm surprised Sam is willing to give you one."

Ash replied saying "I am surprised as well. I definitely did not expect the prof to hand me one of the most hunted pokemon in the pokemon world as well as a traveller's friend. I definitely did not expect a lapras. There were four trainers leaving today but the professor had only three pokemon. Seeing as I wanted to travel he got me a lapras."

By this time, they reached a somewhat secluded pond. Ash released Lapras who looked between Ash and his mom. Ash introduced Lapras to his mother saying "Mom, this is lapras. Lapras, this is my mother. She is my family and from now on your family as well. Say hi."

Lapras while sitting near Ash's legs waved a flipper and cooed at Delia who by this time was scratching lapras behind it's horn on its head. Lapras bent its head slightly into her ministrations. Delia looked up at ash as she was doing this and said "So you are leaving now huh. I'm gonna miss you Ashy."

Ash swallowed a lump in his throat as he hugged his mother saying "Me too mom. But I wanna travel. I will call you whenever I can." She just ruffled his hair and said "Take care Ashy. Are you leaving now?"

Ash nodded as he slowly wiped away tears near his eyes. Lapras was watching all this with a puzzled look on its face. It slowly butted its head against Ash's chest. Ash looked at it and scratched it behind it's ears taking comfort from his pokemon. He looked up and told lapras he was returning it. Then he turned towards his mom and said "I'm leaving now mom. Take care of yourself. I will try to call you every night as signal permits." Delia nodded and he started walking towards route one. He turned back while waving to his mom as he slowly lost sight of her. She kept waving for as long as she could see him and once he was hidden by the trees she lowered her hand, had a sad look on her face and turned back to her now suddenly empty house.

 **ROUTE 1**

Ash made his way through the trees to a lake that he knew was one hour away. He could not walk lapras since it could not walk. He also realised that he did not scan lapras at all. He knew that there were very small non aggressive pokemon till that lake and so thought that he would first talk to lapras near that lake. He walked along as the trees provided him shade from the sun that was now shining ferociously above his head. The thick trees were home to many pokemon and he could not wait to find out more. The sense of euphoria that he was finally travelling on his pokemon journey was coursing through his veins and pumping his blood. The only damper so to speak was lapras since he could not explore most of the land regions till she was grown enough since she would not be able to protect him till she could move on land.

He made it to the lake. He saw a small set rocks that are half submerged in the water and he went to sit on them with his legs in the water. He had already removed his shoes and other clothes and was wearing his swimming gear. He released his lapras who was smiling to be released in the water again. She shifted about a little to the left and the right and then looked up at him in a confused stare.

She was getting a slightly dejected feeling from him. He looked at her and said "A lapras huh. You know, I made a lot of plans for a bulbasaur. Although that was the pokemon I wanted, all the others also could move on land and my plans were flexible enough to adjust them. I never thought I'd get a pokemon that could not move on land as my first pokemon."

Lapras just looked at him a little confused and sad that he did not like it. Ash continued staring wistfully into the distance as he said "Now I'll have to change all my plans. It's going to be annoying. But hey, you are worth it, aren't you? I'm glad to have you. We can travel the world together." Saying this he looked at his pokemon and said "You need to get stronger. My ambition is to travel the world, but I can't do that without my pokemon protecting me and me protecting them. You are my starter, my first pokemon. And my lifelong friend. If I have to adjust to the challenges you present, then so be it. The only thing I ask in return for my love, respect and care is love, respect and hard work. I will train you hard till almost exertion. I just want you to work equally hard. It's my job to help you become the best you can be but it's your job to become the best you can be. Is that clear?"

Lapras nodded with a fire in its eye and a determined look on its face. It could feel the determination from Ash. Ash said "I will scan you now. The pokedex will tell me a little about you like your moves, gender etc." Seeing lapras nod, Ash reached for his bag and pulled out a pokedex. He scanned the lapras and it said " **This is a Lapras. They are able to understand human speech and very intelligent, it loves to swim in the sea with people on its back. This Lapras is female and knows the moves Sing, Growl, Water-Gun, Mist and Dragon Dance. She can absorb water to regain health or heal herself of status effects. For more complete data, kindly check its information page."**

Ash said "That's a pretty good move-set for a beginner pokemon. That fact that you already learnt mist is good. I'm surprised you know dragon dance. You probably had a seadra line or a dratini line parent. Now let's see your speed and strength. Also you need to grow bigger. I really need to read that lapras book. Anyway, here, I'm entering the me along as fast as you can."

Saying this Ash slowly got into the cool water. He held onto one of the spikes on Lapras's shell as she waited for his get go. Once he nodded to her, she swam one round around the lake as fast as she could. He told her "Now after dropping me back at that rock, do another round as fast as you can. I need to see the time difference."

Lapras nodded as she did that. He noted that she was significantly faster without him. He was heavy and also not really aerodynamic. She wasn't lifting him, she as dragging him through the water. It would slow her down but would work her muscles slowly. He then picked up a few rocks and told her "Ok, now I am going to throw these rocks. I want you to hit them with water gun as hard as you can." Seeing her nod again he lobbed the rocks one after the other in different directions and different speeds. She missed many but she hit a few and they were the slower ones.

He then sat down on the rock while he told her "You are still young obviously. You need to grow in strength and speed. You also need to get better aim for your water gun as well as better accuracy and power. So for now, we will work on hitting your water gun's accuracy, power and speed. Apart from this, we will be working on your speed, strength and endurance. The speed part will be laps around this lake, the strength part will be dragging me around this lake again in laps and the endurance part will be doing both at the top speed you can first, then once you are tired pacing yourself at the speed you are comfortable with."

He looked at lapras who nodded that she understood him. He continued saying "For your water gun training, I am going to get you to cast your water gun continuously at that rock. That should increase your strength and endurance. For your speed and accuracy, I will be lobbing rocks into the sky over the lake and you hit them with your water gun. Once you are strong enough with those and fast enough with those to attack a wild rattata using quick attack, then we will travel on. Is that ok?"

Lapras looked a little down but nodded. Ash looked at her and slowly moved into the water. He scratched her horn as he said "Lapras, you are extremely rare. People will literally kill us just to get to you. I need you to be strong enough to protect both you and me before we go into the wilder parts. I am sorry that it seems so boring now but this is one area where there are not too many strong pokemon. We will train here for two or three weeks depending on how fast you can grow stronger before we leave. I have enough food for the two of us for a month in my back. You will also learn to hunt eventually. I will always feed you but considering the pokemon I am thinking of catching and considering that I will not be in cities for weeks on end, it would not be feasible for me to carry food for everyone for all those weeks. Each of my pokemon will learn to hunt while I will carry the essential vitamins and other stuff as well as a lot of berries. I will carry a lot of food but definitely not enough for all of us for that long. I would not be able to store that much food on me. But that is not a concern now. You are still young and small. You need to grow to at least six and a half feet before we start you on that. Now which training would you like to do first?"

Ash looked at lapras as she gained a thoughtful look. She finally decided on swimming around. So Ash got back in the water after placing his bag on one of the high rocks in the water. He then held on to Lapras as he asked her to swim around. She kept swimming around as fast as she could. This was training for both him and her. For him it was strength training as his body fought against the force of the water and his hands had to hold on to the spike on Lapras's back. For her it was strength training as she had some weight and something that would provide her with resistance to her swimming. This went on till Ash got tired. Once he got tired, he told Lapras to keep continuing swimming at her top speed.

After this continued for some time, ash stopped her since it was obvious that she was not tiring that easily but her top speed was not very fast. So he asked her to push herself to the absolute maximum and not pace herself. This got her tired quicker, but still took some time. Ash praised her for her endurance saying

"Well Lapras, it looks like you are very fit and your stamina is very high. We just need to work on speed and strength. We need you to be faster than the fastest ferries if I am to travel the seas with you since the distances are very long. Now come here, I collected a lot of stones. You should be able to hit them as fast as possible."

Thus began their water gun accuracy training. This continued till Ash ran outta stones and then he told lapras "Most water attacks from what I remember rely on power. The more pressure you can give for a water attack the better. The difference between the upper attacks and the lower powered attacks is the pressure and the amount of water. So we will start working on pressure. Right now, your water gun is like a normal pokemon's water gun. We will keep increasing the pressure till it is incredibly strong and is strong enough to rival most pokemon's Brine attack. This will only help you when you learn stronger attacks."

Saying this, he got lapras to attack a rock on the side of the lake while he collected more stones. He told lapras to keep increasing the strength on water-gun until she can break the stone in two twice continuously. Lapras kept this up for another hour growing immensely tired in the process. Sure she recovered some energy due to the fact that she was in water, but not enough that she could keep it up.

When he saw that lapras was very tired, he let her take a break saying "Good work lapras. You seem tired. It's good. Take a break. I can see an improvement in your water gun. It is stronger than it was before. Come have a little food." He laid out food for lapras while laying a little food for himself. He went to the rocks and lapras ate from next to him from her plate on the rocks while he sat next to her and ate his food.

After food they took a half hour break. During this time, he spoke to lapras "I am wondering what to do. Do you have any ideas? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What pokemon do you want to catch?"

Seeing lapras tilt her head to the side and sing lightly he continued "I want to travel, but I never had a set destination. I just want to see the world. I know that I need strength and money for that. Money we get from the bounties that pokemon centres offer. Strength we get because we train. I have been told that a pokemon grows stronger only from constant battles and pushing themselves beyond their limits. So we will catch every pokemon with a partner, a rival whom that pokemon can train with. Both are our friends. And we want both to grow strong. I am currently thinking of a rival for you, whom you can train against. Any suggestions?"

Seeing lapras a little more enthusiastic about it he said "Good, I'll get a list of pokemon that are available nearby. You can decide whom you want and we will go and get them."

At this seeing lapras nod, Ash got up and went to get the pokedex. There he showed lapras the commonly available pokemon in the area. He said "Here, these are the pokemon that are commonly available. First, do you want a pokemon that can move on both land and water? Or only on water?"

He got an image of a water based pokemon and looked up in surprise. He said "I just got an image of a water based pokemon. Is that you?"

Seeing Lapras nod again, he asked her "Can you send me an image of any one of the three pokemon on this page?"

He got an image of poliwrath. Seeing this, he whooped in delight. He was extremely excited. He read about the fact that lapras could communicate telepathically but he never figured it would be an ability from birth. He assumed that it was something that was worked upon extensively like for psychics and it would take a lot of time before he could even start lapras on telepathic communication.

He said looking at lapras with an excited expression "Can you communicate with me telepathically?"

He got a confused feeling in his mind while lapras cooed again while tilting in her head. So he asked her "Can you talk to me through feelings in my mind?" At this lapras nodded looking a little wary while ash seeing this jumped and hugged her saying "This is so awesome. Now I understand why the professor said you were special. Excellent. Now I can get what you are saying. This is going to be much more fun. Yay."

The happy feeling was infectious as lapras also smiled and butted her head against his chest. He caught her head in his hands and started rubbing her head behind her horns and she gave a pleased coo and feelings of happiness to ash's mind.

Ash said "This is great. We will have to work on this as well. But in the meantime, let's take a look at the pokemon that are available here." Saying this, he got back to sitting down while lapras came and floated next to him with her head near his shoulders.

He pointed towards magikarp and said "This is a pokemon that is called magikarp. It is available everywhere. It evolves into a gyaridos. They are huge and monstrously powerful." At feelings of questioning in his mind he said "They are around 5 times your size on average in length and around your height in width." He got feelings of astonishment in his head. He continued saying "They are not very good as water types but are very strong and can travel the seas easily."

He continued to the next pokemon "This is a horsea, they are a little rare here but are still found easily. There is a pond a little distance away where I saw a few. They evolve into a kingdra. As a horsea and a seadra they cannot leave the water but they can as a kingdra levitate onto the land though they still prefer the water. They are good as a water type and can probably learn many moves in a similar manner to you." Feeling anticipation, he said "They are good. The next pokemon that I thought of was a tentacruel. They are huge and can easily move through the seas. They are easily available here and can become very powerful. They also are not exactly what one expects from a typical water type but they are a good water type pokemon and are immensely strong."

Seeing Lapras nod to continue he flipped to a different picture in the pokedex and said "These are seaking, they evolve from goldeen and are pretty song. They also live only in the water and do not come out on land. They are good pokemon and a little strong but not very strong. These are the only water based pokemon available nearby. Do you want to look at the land based ones as well?"

Seeing lapras nod he said "There are three more available. You have already seen one of them. This is a poliwag. We saw it a little while ago. It evolves into two powerful pokemon, one that is a fighter and another that is a little psychic. They are good pokemon." Seeing lapras nod he said "The next one is a psyduck. They are somewhat strong pokemon that evolve into a strong water pokemon called golduck. They also have fledgling psychic abilities." He looked at lapras and continued and said "The last one also has basic psychic abilities. It is found out on sea very close to pallet. It is called a staryu. It evolves into a starmie and is a pretty powerful pokemon as well. Although none of these come close to you, gyaridos and kingdra. You three are the most powerful of the lot mentioned. But the others are also good."

Seeing this, he said "You can think about what pokemon you want to get as your rival. Tell me tonight. For now, get back to laps. We have had enough of a break."

Saying this he stood up and put the pokedex away. Lapras also started on her workout. The routine from morning continued and lapras continued growing stronger. While her physical abilities did not grow much, her abilities in her water gun improved at a visible rate. He accuracy was getting much better while she was slowly starting to cause a dent in the rock she was shooting the water-gun into. Hopefully by the end of the next three days, she would be able to crack it easily.

He set about setting a fire. He remembered that he had to call his mom and also made a note to ask for the new psychic resistance bands that are available in the market. Sure they were a little expensive but they were a one-time investment and he would ask his mother to get him a few which he would pay-back when he started earning money.

Once camp was established, the wood collected and a fire going, he started reading the material that professor Oak gave about Lapras since that was his first pokemon. He would start reading the other water pokemon book once he was done with lapras's book. As the sun was setting ash called out to lapras who was still devoutly doing laps after another tiring session of water guns at the rock. The rock had a small indent around the size of lapras's water-gun already.

She came over to him panting a little and he scratched her behind her ears praising her for her good work. Then he set out both their food and ate with her. Once done he was reading the lapras book while she was looking on from behind. He read out loud and kept asking lapras if somethings were true. The book was incredibly detailed. It spoke majorly about lapras's diet. They were omnivores but preferred eating sea-weed and other aquatic plants to pokemon. They had gills on the side that they could use to breathe underwater if required although they prefer to stay on the surface of the water. They were excellent swimmers and were amongst the fastest swimmers in the pokemon kingdom which was a necessity considering that they constantly travelled the rough seas. It also told him that the shell on lapras's back although heavy was very strong and much stronger than it was heavier. It would get stronger and stronger the more Lapras absorbed water from the sea. There was some process internal to the body of a lapras that would convert sea salts to the material that the shell is made of. It was interesting. There was also a warning that excessive drag should not be put on the shell during the early years of the lapras and once it was atleast six feet high, it could start taking weight on the shell since by then, the shell would have grown stronger and the muscles below the shell holding it in place would grow much stronger.

Reading this, Ash apologized about the bad training method of holding on to the shell of the lapras but lapras just sent him feelings of forgiveness and happiness while butting him with a smile on its face. Ash finished the book on lapras since it was relatively short. He did not need the information about how to raise a baby lapras. He kept track of all the information required and stopped reading.

Once done, he asked lapras whether she thought of the pokemon she wanted as a companion and rival. Seeing her nod, he asked her which pokemon it was and got back the image of a kingdra. Ash smiled. He knew that he might not be able to make it a kingdra very easily since dragon scales were very rare but he would make it an insanely strong seadra and if he could not find a dragon scale in a year, he would come back to talk to professor Oak about getting help from Oak's dragonite. He said "We will go get our friend tomorrow. We will capture him and then come back here to train. This is going to be fun."

Seeing lapras nod, he told her it was getting late and that they would start very early the next morning. He also told her that tomorrow morning, they would try to get dragon dance working properly since he didn't know if it would work easily. It was an egg move and could possibly not work till lapras was strong enough. Seeing lapras nod again, he started scratching her and felt feelings of happiness invade his mind. He then picked up the phone and called his mom while still scratching lapras. She picked up the phone and said "Hello Ashy. I was worried. Where are you? How are you? How was your first day?" Seeing this, ash interrupted her saying "Mom. I'm fine. I am alright. Nothing is wrong with me. Lapras is also fine. We are very close to pallet. Only an hour or two away from pallet. My first day was good. Taking prof Oak's advice, we started training to make Lapras strong before we went ahead. I am also probably going to catch a horsea and then a few more days later, a pidgey and a spearow or two different pidgey. But first horsea. I will be around pallet for a week atleast. Maybe a little more. I need to hide lapras from the rest of the world till she gets stronger."

Seeing her nod, he continued "I wanted to ask you if you could get me those psychic resistance bands that came up to help train pokemon? I don't know if they are available in pallet but could you check tomorrow and call me? If they are available in pallet, I will come and get them from you."

Delia said "Ok, I will check. How many do you need?"

Ash said "One psychic band per pokemon should be enough, I need only four. I am not catching more than that before viridian. And I can get more from there if required."

Delia nodded and said "I will call you tomorrow Ashy. Good night and take care."

Ash also said "Good night mom." Lapras cooed at her.

He cut the phone and then put his things away. He slowly set up his mat. It had gotten dark and the time was around 8:30. In the jungle with no light, that was very late since nothing could be done. He slowly put out the fire. Left lapras out of her pokeball and went to sleep in his mat after wishing her good night. He told her "Wake me up if something comes up. Otherwise wake me up tomorrow morning when you get up."

 **THE NEXT DAY**

The next morning, Ash got up early. It was before sun-rise. The sky was just lighting up and lapras was still sleeping. He read that lapras usually slept underwater but since he could not go underwater, she slept above water for him.

He stretched and slowly called out to lapras to wake her up. Once she woke up he said "Good morning Lapras. Now we try to use dragon dance. Then we do our morning exercize. Then we eat. After that, we go look for a horsea. SO let's start. Are you ready?"

Seeing that she was he said "Lapras, use dragon dance." Lapras instantly got a reddish glow around her for a few seconds. Then her muscles bulked up a little and stretched. But the glow slowly vanished and it seemed like it suffused into her muscles. She had a slight aura while using dragon dance. Once she did and it seemed like she was under strain he said "Now try moving as fast as you can around the lake." Lapras's speed had increased to a large extent. She was moving much faster than her top speed yesterday. This change probably affected her reflexes as well as physical attack power. This was a very pleasant thing since Dragon dance came with a single drawback which was that using dragon type energy grew slightly difficult when dragon dance was used. But this was not a drawback for Lapras since most of her attacks were water and Ice types with only one possible dragon attack that she could learn which was dragon pulse. It was a long way away before she could learn that and she had a whole host of other moves that he wanted her to learn before she even approached dragon pulse.

Lapras suddenly slowed down and panted. Her speed reduced to slightly lower than yesterday's top speed because she was tired but not much lower. This was good. She could hold it for a small amount of time. Lapras could use this to improve working on her speed and strength since dragon dance used up muscle strength and helped build the muscles. It only provided an alternate source of energy that the muscles can use and forced the muscles to work a little overtime. This prevented the sensation of cramps occurring or the muscle tearing since it performed a small healing to strengthen the muscles. Over time, this led to very strong muscles. Ash was glad that lapras had dragon dance working. He was very interested in learning with it.

He said "Good job lapras, you can use dragon dance although it tires you out fast. This is because of two reasons as per my knowledge. The first is that you ran out of draconic energy. The second is that the muscles ran out. This could be a very impressive and easy way for you to train both your draconic energy stores as well as muscle strength. After we catch horsea, you will exercize only with dragon dance used once. Once you get used to the feeling of using dragon dance and working with it and your body doesn't start breaking down with it anymore, we will use it twice. This kind of training should get you stronger and faster in a much shorter time."

Lapras nodded tiredly. Ash said "Now don't worry. Good job. I'm very happy as you can probably tell". Seeing Lapras nod he said "Now, we take a break for breakfast. Then we go get a horsea as our friend. Come on. Let's eat up." Lapras came over to him and nudged his chest a little while sending him the image of a sun-rise. It was the lapras version of a good morning.

Ash scratched her behind her ears and then went about setting food for her while she floated peacefully on the lake looking at the sky. The morning food was the typical trainer's food with a crushed oran berry for her energy.

He set a plate for her on the shallow rock while he set another for himself near the rock and sat down on the rock. They shared a peaceful morning eating breakfast silently in each other's company. He got general feelings of satisfaction from lapras which brought a smile on his face and happiness which transferred to lapras. This was like a loop and soon both were happily smiling.

Once done, he set about cleaning up and putting his things inside. Once done, he told lapras that he would recall her and release her in the pond that he saw the horseas playing. She nodded and licked his face before he recalled her. Once done, he set about making for the pond where he saw the horseas. It was a good hour away from where he currently was and he enjoyed walking through the woods. At times like this he felt sad that lapras could not walk the woods with him but then he got better thinking that they could travel down rivers to get where they wanted to go. And kanto had many small rivulets that dotted the area. It did not have anything major that cuts across the region but a network of small rivulets that connected various parts of the region.

He watched a few pidgeys, caterpies, rattatas moving around and starting their daily activities. He finally felt excited. Like he was travelling out into the world. Just nature, pokemon and him. He kept walking towards the pond where he saw some horsea playing. He stopped and collected a few berries whenever he spotted them on the way but for the most part, he stuck to the trail between the two ponds. He continued on his way when suddenly he met a trainer who challenged him.

The trainer was a guy who was slightly taller than he was but thinner. He also looked to be about the same age give or take a few months. He had two pokeballs strapped to his belt while he wore shorts and a small yellow cap on his head. He looked like someone who did not spend much time in the wilds considering that his muscles didn't look that well developed neither did his clothes have stains of grass and other things on them. He said "Hey, I'm Alan from viridian city and I want to challenge you to a pokemon battle."

Ash looked at him and considered whether to battle or not. He looked at him and said "Hi, I'm Ash from pallet. I only have one pokemon so it will be a one on one. Is that ok?"

Seeing Alan nod ash said "Let's begin. You go first."

Alan said "I choose you geodude." Saying this, he released what looked like an average geodude for its species. It looked about the same height and weight as normal geodudes, ithad one extra ridge to it over others but that did not seem to be a significant enough difference. Ash smiled and said "Go my friend. And released Lapras, who looked around confused. Ash said "Hey, don't worry, on the way to the lake we got challenged to a pokemon battle. You will do great. Just chill and work like usual."

Lapras looked at him, looked across at Alan and his geodude and nodded. She gained a somewhat determined look in her eyes and sent across a message to Ash that she was ready to battle. Ash nodded and said "Well Alan, you can have the first move."

Alan was a little unnerved by the pokemon he saw since he did not know what it was and neither did Ash nor his pokemon call out the pokemon's name. He said "Geodude, lets play it safe. Start with a defense curl and then start moving into a tackle." The moment he said that geodude started gaining a shine on his body while his colour started to become a darker brown. While this was happening Ash looked at geodude and said "Water gun, in breaks, as fast and hard as you can while being accurate."

Lapras nodded and instantly she unleashed a water gun. Alan shouted "Move geodude!" Geodude rolled away and escaped the first burst but the second third and fourth hit him. By this point of time geodude had fainted but lapras hit one more burst just to be sure and then stopped. Alan's geodude was down and had a small crack in its outer body. This was not a bad thing but was not good for a geodude since that indicated that the outer body of the geodude was not strong enough. Alan nodded dejectedly and returned his pokemon. He looked at ash and said "You want to have another one on one battle?"

Ash didn't mind and said "Go ahead. I don't mind."

Alan nodded and then released his second pokemon saying "Go pidgey."

From his pokeball came a slightly smaller than average pidgey but that thought was shaken off when her wings were unfolded. The pidgey had slightly larger wings in comparison to her body size and was relatively faster than normal as she reached a height she deemed safe. From there she looked down and cawed.

Alan said "Pidgey, sand attack." Instantly pidgey started flapping her wings at a fast speed to raise some sand into the air. Ash instantly said "Lapras, close your eyes. Wait for the sand to settle and then use water-gun. Bursts again. While closing your eyes, growl at her."

Instantly there was a growl that filled the air that caused pidgey to falter and become cautious. She could not recklessly attack and was a little hesitant in attacking. The pidgey kept up her sand attack.

Alan said "Use Gust." Pidgey instantly changed focus and instead of focussing on blowing sand into the air, she instead focussed her power to use a pushing force on lapras that would hit her with the force of a tackle."

Ash looked a little nervous and said "Take it." Lapras waited resolutely for the gust to hit her. It hurt but very little. The effect of the gust was that it removed the sand from the air and pushed it away.

Ash said "Now, open your eyes and water gun. pidgey is above to the left." Lapras did that instantly.

The moment Lapras did that, Alan said "Quick-attack to dodge those water guns." Pidgey vanished in a streak of light. She was a blur and was dodging lapras's water-guns although it was closer and closer each time. It seemed that the training to keep up a constant fire of water guns did good. Eventually, despite dodging, pidgey got tired of constantly keeping on quick-attack. It was supposed to be used as a sudden burst of energy to the muscles to increase speed to a large extent and tackle. It required a lot of training to hold it up constantly. The moment pidgey got out of quick-attack, she was hit with a water gun. That threw off her flight and she had to perform some tricky manoeuvres to not crash into the tree trunk. These threw off Lapras's aim for one burst of water gun but the coming three hit and resolutely pushed pidgey into the tree trunk. Lapras didn't stop until Alan called a hold. She stopped and noticed that pidgey was knocked unconscious.

Instantly Ash and Alan rushed to pidgey since it was a small pidgey and the force it hit the tree with might cause it issues. Ash reached the pidgey first and examined it. Just as he was done, Alan came by to do the same. Ash stood up and said "Nothing seems broken or hurt. She might have a few bruises on her chest but that can be expected from a battle. She just seems to be knocked unconscious due to the sudden hit to her head. A potion should fix her up, but just to be safe, get her checked out at the poke-center at pallet. It's one and a half hours that way."

Alan looked at ash with a mad face and said "You are a very brutal battler."

Ash replied "This is a battle. I would never harm a pokemon to death battle or no but in a battle one fights all out without losing any advantages. Why would a pokemon that can hit the other pokemon give up the chance just so the other pokemon recuperates in battle? Outside battle I understand and would never hurt a pokemon that badly but in battle I'm sorry. This is how it is. So long as the pokemon is not hurt too badly, all's fine according to me. Pokemon get hurt battling, it's not going to be tickling."

Alan was still pissed but said "You won against me fair and square. While I think you were harsh, I understand the view you take. I don't think I will battle against you anytime soon unless my pokemon get stronger. Here's the money. Thanks for the way to pallet."

Saying this, he pulled out his pokedex and confirmed transferring 1000 poke-dollars to Ash's pokedex and walked away after recalling his pokemon. Ash shook his head and turned to lapras who was slowly waddling towards him a little confused. Ash walked up to her and scratched his head while she sent him confused feelings. Both happy and sad. Ash said "That is why I don't like pokemon battles. Pokemon get hurt. You performed very well today but we need more moves against your opponents. I am happy."

Lapras instantly had a smile on her face as Ash said "Now, I am going to recall you and get to that lake. It is only about ten minutes away. I'll see you there." Seeing Lapras nod, Ash returned her and continued walking.

Once he reached the lake, he released Lapras and then slowly walked along the shore of the lake with lapras swimming alongside him. He told her "I'm taking you to the place where I saw the horseas playing. I do not have a fishing rod and won't be able to fish a horsea out. You go down and talk to the school of horseas about one that wants to travel with us. If they want to battle to see whether we are strong enough, then tell it to come up and we can battle together against it. Once we find one, we will spend the rest of the day walking back to the other lake and training. There may be gyarados in this lake and none of us is currently strong enough to take one on. So you ready to go?"

Seeing lapras nod, he said "Go have fun, chat with a few of the horsea and whichever one wants to come on top after all the stuff I described, let them come and then we will battle them if they want us to."

Lapras nodded once again, licked his face and went underwater while he just sat there on the rock. Eventually after around half an hour or so Lapras came back on the surface trailed by a horsea. Lapras immediately went towards Ash and butted her head against his shoulder while Ash scratching her ears. Horsea just stood there undecided on what to do.

Ash asked "So is the horsea interested in coming?" On seeing Lapras nod, he continued "Do we have to battle it?". Lapras shook his head and just cooed lightly while sending images of travelling and kingdra. Ash said "Does it know about our training and how harsh I can get?"

Seeing lapras nod Ash turned to horsea and said "I want to travel. I'm sure Lapras told you as much about me as she can. If you still want to join us, here is the pokeball. Tap against it."

Horsea looked a little confused but slowly came up to ash, snorted some ink on his feet and then hit his head on the pokeball. The pokeball sucked him in without any problems and ash was happy saying "Yes, we got our second teammate. Now we go back to the older lake."

Saying this, he slowly walked back to the location of the lake from where the other lake is closest with lapras swimming along on the lake. Once he reached, he turned to lapras and told her he would return her. Lapras nodded and waited. Ash returned her and immediately started walking back towards the other lake.

Nothing very exciting happened on the way. Ash reached the other lake and then released Lapras and horsea. Lapras cooed and sent him a happy feeling, while horsea just looked on. Ash smiled at lapras and then turned to horsea saying "I'm going to scan you with the pokedex. After that, we will decide how to train you. For a few days now, you and lapras are going to be training buddies. Just stay still while I scan you ok?"

Seeing horsea bob its head, he took out his pokedex and scanned it. The pokedex said " **This is a horsea. They shoot down food with short precise bursts of ink and maintain their balance in currents using the manoeuvrability of their tails. This horsea is male and knows the attacks Bubble, SmokeScreen, Water-Gun and Disable. They are incredibly fast in the water and very accurate with their snout attacks. For more information, check their page on the pokedex."**

Ash looked at horsea and said "That is a somewhat impressive movelist. I am surprised you know disable but I assume that it is an egg move. You must have had a psyduck line pokemon in your family. Anyway, this is good. You are supposed to be precise and accurate. Let's see how true that is."

Saying this, Ash started out on the same course he had lapras do as practice. He noted that while horsea had far more accuracy and speed than lapras, it had far less power in terms of the ranged attacks. In terms of speed, despite them being in still waters and horsea's boost, lapras was still faster than horsea and this surprised ash. But on the whole he was happy with the horsea.

After testing horsea he said "Now on, you will perform all your exercises together. Horsea that is your rock. By the time we leave, you should be able to crack that rock in two using only your watergun. Also most of your physical training will be along the lines of lapras since both of you lack speed and strength. Apart from that, we will be having battles against each other. Spars if you will. Fight with all you have got, push yourself to the limits. We will be doing this everyday in the afternoon. For now, start exercising, start on your speed and strength drills."

Saying this, he looked up. He saw Lapras using dragon-dance and smiled. Good that she remembered. She looked at him and saw his smile at her. She sent a happy feeling back, spoke to the horsea and took off. Horsea was surprised. He also started taking off in the maximum speed he could. Ash in the meanwhile called his mother.

"Mom, did you check for the bands?"

"Yes, Ashy. I went and saw them in the mart. There was an offer where taking six in bulk came out cheaper than taking six individually so I bought six bands for you. When are you coming to get them?"

Ash said "My pokemon are doing their exercises. I will probably be home late evening tonight and sleep at home if that is ok?"

Delia's face lit up as she said "Yes it is Ashy. Tell me what you did when you come back. Bye."

Ash also said bye and cut the phone. After the call, he continued watching their exercizes and then set out lunch. Once lunch was set, he called for a break. After lunch they trained for an hour more and then he told them "Hey, we are going home for tonight. I will probably leave you in a lake in prof Oak's place if that is what you prefer. My mother has our training aids. Once we get those, we can come back here early tomorrow morning. So, ready to go?"

They nodded and he returned them. He walked back towards pallet. He missed the town despite the fact that he had been away from there only for two days. He still smiled. His pokemon were growing slowly. He couldn't see them as uber strong monsters now but he eventually would. He slowly walked towards pallet. He made it a little before the sun set and went to the Oak's place. Once there he knocked and an aide to prof Oak opened the door. Ash asked "Hey is professor Oak available?"

The aide nodded and led Ash in. Ash was sitting waiting when professor Oak came into the room. He was surprised and said "Ash, what are you doing here? I thought you would be in the wilderness somewhere?"

Ash smiled and said "I would have, but I need to train some pokemon before that. Also I needed a training aid, so I stayed nearby. Mom purchased those psychic resistance bands and I am here to take them. I thought I might as well stay the night and talk to mom and leave tomorrow morning again. Since I have two water bound pokemon, I figured I could keep them here."

Oak nodded but raised an eyebrow and said "Two water pokemon?"

Ash nodded saying "I have read somewhere and believe that pokemon get stronger faster if they battle more. This is apart from normal training. I want to have friends I can travel with sure, but they should be strong enough to protect me should it be required and vice versa. So I need to make my pokemon strong. So I devised a buddy system. Each pokemon I catch will have a buddy who will train together always. I needed a buddy for lapras and she chose a horsea. So I caught a horsea and now am training him as well."

Oak smiled and said "Not many people know that pokemon grow strong by fighting. But there are other ways to strength. Just that those take more time. Apart from that, the buddy system is unique. I would like to see their results. You can release them in the first lake near the door. There are very docile pokemon there. Both your pokemon are not territorial are they?"

Seeing Ash shake his head he continued "Well, go on ahead. I'm sure Delia is waiting."

Ash said "Thanks professor. I'll leave them here. Kindly feed them dinner and then leave them in the lake. They enjoy sleeping outside the pokeball. I'll be back for them early tomorrow morning. Is that ok?"

Oak nodded saying "Yea, I'll be up. See you tomorrow."

Ash walked out towards the lake and released his pokemon. He told them about the situation and then left them there saying he would be back for them tomorrow morning. He scratched lapras behind her ears and petted horsea's head. Both gave a sound of pleasure and then he left.

He looked forward to meeting his mother and talking to her. There was something about talking to people in person that a phone just couldn't capture. With a smile on his face he walked home.


	2. Chapter 2 The second step

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.

A.N: Thank you for your reviews. They are helping me improve. I appreciate them. Also, I am sorry for the late update. RL is time-taking. Apart from that my muse keeps changing between harry potter, Naruto, Bleach and pokemon. I have decided that to keep matters simple, I will update short chapters of 5k odd words. If I can finish more, excellent but if not then I will at least have 5k words per chapter.

Also I am always open to suggestions and reviews. I am not sure about Ash catching too many pokemon. I want him to travel with as few as possible and it does not seem realistic to have many pokemon kept in Oak's corrals while ash himself is travelling. I actually envision him with only five pokemon as of right now. Four of which you know. The sixth is open to suggestions. The only thing is that it should not be a pokemon used for travel but primarily as a battler. While all of Ash's team can eventually battle at very high levels, the purpose of the sixth pokemon is as a battler. The guardian of Ash's team. And that slot is open. Any suggestions regarding what pokemon to take, possible ways to introduce them and why to introduce them is welcome. Some of my current options are jolteon, espeon, tangrowth, primeape, rhypherior, raticate. Other options are also welcome. Just please don't say charizard, magmortar, electrabuzz, dragonite. I honestly love those pokemon and am a charizard fanboy but they are very overused.

Rant over. Sorry for the rant. Enjoy the chapter folks and as always, constructive criticism and suggestions are welcomed.

 **Chapter 2: The second step of the journey**

It was early morning when Ash set out from pallet again. He had met his mother and spent what was left last evening talking to her. Then before sleeping, he packed everything he had removed from his bag as well as the things his mother had purchased for him and left for the lab. Luckily for him, the professor was up this early since Ash never specified a time and there was not much of an issue collecting his pokemon. He had fed them an early breakfast in the Oak Corals and after saying his goodbyes walked away from pallet just as the sun started to rise.

There was a freshness in the air and silence as most of the residents of the forest were not up yet. There was a streak of orange in a light blue morning sky signalling that the sun was about to rise. A calm breeze was blowing and brought with it a nice fragrance of flowers, the sea and the light feel of dew flying off of leaves and leaving the place a little moist. It was a good morning and Ash was pleased that he could start his day like this. He was currently pleasantly walking taking in the sights and the calmness of mother nature early in the morning. No pesky mosquitoes either to bite him.

By the time the pokemon in the wilderness near pallet began their day, he almost reached the lake which was his destination. He was hoping to stay there for some time before he caught his next two pokemon. As he kept walking, he could see a hint of a shiny blue surface which was reflecting the sunlight. For the first time since he was 8 did he truly appreciate the beauty of the lake. There was a small stream running off from it towards viridian although he did not know if it actually went near the city or stopped halfway having never explored it. He also saw a few of the resident pokemon coming to have some water, along with a few of the water pokemon getting out of the water to get some sunlight before it became too hot.

A few of the raticate hissed when he passed near them but he just kept walking without taking a step towards them. He walked slowly towards the same place he was at the last time he was here. A few of the poliwag watched him with interest while the poliwhirl looked at him with a little caution. But nothing too serious since they were at the other side of the lake.

He released his pokemon with two flashes of light. They materialized and he said "Yo, lapras, horsea. We reached the lake. You have your psychic bands set to level one. You know what to do. Get to it."

Saying this he watched as they nodded and lapras sent him a slightly annoyed feeling about getting them to work so hard in the morning. He smiled at her and she huffed before sending him a satisfied feeling and started her laps on dragon dance. Horsea could not keep up with lapras. There was no way he could. Even as a highly trained kingdra it would be insanely difficult to keep up with a lapras that was decently trained. Lapras were meant to travel the seas. Something that was vast and did not grant access to many resources or rest. Thus they were meant to be able to deal with rough waters at a speed much higher than most normal pokemon. There were very few speed boats, mostly registered to the league that could even hope to keep up with older laprases or properly trained ones. Kingdra were strong, true but they were not travelers. So they lacked the sheer speed and stamina of a lapras. His lapras, while not really facing those waters was still having those inherent capabilities and was boosted up on dragon dance while running on normal waters, it was easy to see that it was one sided. They just had different strengths.

Horsea kept up as best as he could but he seemed to draw inspiration from the fact that lapras was so much faster and that he would need to be just as fast to be able to keep up with her. So he tried his best and was doing a good job at it.

Ash sighed on watching them. He was both happy and sad at the same time. He knew that this would be hurting them a lot but that it would help them grow. He was happy that he had learnt under professor Oak and had managed to keep in mind the difference between power and strength.

Power was when the pokemon had the power to stand against the elements itself, the fury of nature, take a hurricane and plough through it without harm, survive a storm at seas in rough waters without problems, these were feats of power. This could be got from extensively training the pokemon. Physically as well as w.r.t energy and mental strength. This was something that a pokemon had in its body, something that caused it to grow. This was something that a pokemon got only from stretching itself to the limits and beyond them over and over again. It helped them grow and being pokemon, they recover at a much faster rate thus accumulating more power faster. This is not to say that they grow older physically and mentally at that rate. It is similar to having a 15-year-old body builder who would be more powerful than a 23-year-old normal person who does not exercise. Doesn't change the fact that the 15-year-old is still a 15-year-old. Just that he is powerful.

Strength is the ability of a pokemon to use its power as efficiently as possible to win battles. It is the ability of a pokemon to fight, not give up in conflict and come out on top. It is a different challenge from facing the wrath of nature since that is something that is not easy to overcome. There can be no efficient tricks there. Whereas here, it is the ability to use whatever it has as best it can. An extremely sharp dagger is better at killing than a blunt broadsword although the broadsword is more powerful. This was something that pokemon gained from battle and experience. This was something that a pokemon earned from overcoming challenges that pushed it to the brink and forced them to think. It was equally mental as well as physical. The easiest way to compare them would be power is the ability to fly into a hurricane and not be bothered whereas strength is the ability to survive the hurricane as best as one can, be it flying through it or flying above it. The same end result with a completely different goal and method.

Considering that Ash wanted to travel, his pokemon needed to be powerful first and foremost. When he is on the sea on the back of his lapras in the middle of the storm, it is the power of his lapras and his kingdra that will protect him. To ensure that that happens, he needs to ensure that they are powerful enough to protect him. Which is why he is intensely training them. He realized that there is only so much strength that a pokemon can hold before it evolves unless it is at its final evolutionary level in which case the bodies are made to handle the toughness. So he was afraid that his intense training of his pokemon would cause them to evolve much faster than normal. That was not a fear for his lapras, but he expected to have a powerful seadra within a month, maximum of two months.

Since the horsea isn't fully mature for its age it would mean that he would have to wait for the kingdra to mature even more slowly since they will take more time, but that did not change the fact that they would be strong. Just that the kingdra would have to learn to control its power since that control and maturity didn't come to it naturally. This was something he worried about for all his future pokemon. But he did not have any other alternative. He was stepping into the wilderness, trying to avoid most of the major places often without enough ability to get to a pokecenter. His pokemon needed to be able to survive. They needed to be powerful. While conflict was also one of the unescapable facts of a pokemon trainer's life, he had a plan to bypass it. But just in case, he figured why not have them be strong as well.

Because of this, he was a little sad. Sad because his pokemon would not exactly be having a lot of fun initially. This was true for his first few pokemon since the task of protecting him would essentially fall on them. He did not like it but he had to do it. He had made it clear to them and they had agreed. He was happy about that. That despite knowing him for all of two days, his pokemon were willing to sacrifice that much just to spend time with him and grow strong.

He vowed to help his pokemon fulfil their dreams if they had any. He looked up to see that they were still doing laps while he was lost in thought. The sun was higher up in the sky and there was a sheen of sweat on his skin from the relative humidity near the lake. His pokemon also had slowed down from when they began but were still going strong.

He stopped daydreaming, remembered his vow and then got up to go and check out his book on flying type pokemon that he had asked of professor Oak.

Eventually, his pokemon were done with their physical training and came to rest beside him. He scratched lapras behind her ears and she leaned into it. With his other hand, he scooped out his horsea and slowly scratched him as well. Both of them were glad to get a rest. Ash let them rest for fifteen minutes before he told them to start on water gun and bubble training. First for strength on their respective rocks. Then once they were absolutely down to take a break for ten minutes before starting on the accuracy part.

This worked well for him. They were slowly able to increase the number of bursts of water gun in frequency, speed of each burst, and the pressure that each burst carried while keeping the burst size relatively constant. This forced their endurance, speed and water pressure to increase. While this was going on, he lined up 40 rocks at a distance from the shore. 20 for each pokemon with a distinct gap between them. When they were taking a break from the strength part of their water attack training, he started telling them what to do on the accuracy part.

He said "Ok, the accuracy training will be three fold. The first part of the training will be those rocks." At this the pokemon looked at the rocks and ash got a curious feeling from lapras while horsea's eyes took on a puzzled look. He continued saying "Each of you has twenty rocks. You have to hit them. They are fairly small so you have to be accurate. The one who hits them fastest wins this competition. Finish this, then I will tell you the second part. You ready?"

Seeing them both nod resolutely, ash told them both to stand in a specific place, moved out of the way and said "Go!".

The two pokemon immediately started off shooting precise waterguns and it was easy to see that horsea was winning here. It was more accurate generally and also had a slightly faster firing rate. It beat lapras by a whole three seconds. Both of them missed a few shots but horsea was more accurate.

Then he said "Good one horsea. You finished first. Both of you need to work on it more and lapras, you need to work on your firing speed. Your shots were more powerful but were comparatively slower as was your firing frequency. Now for the second part, horsea will launch his bubble attack in the air while keeping the number of bubbles constant, and we will record the time it takes for one to break all the bubbles with a watergun."

Seeing them nod he shouted for them to begin saying "horsea **Bubble**." Once horsea had launched a bubble attack into the sky, he said "horsea begin."

Instantly horsea started firing and finished it. He noted the time and then said "horsea **Bubble** again.". Horsea obliged once more and this time he beckoned for lapras to begin her water gun. After noting lapras's time he said "Lapras, horsea beat you again. But this time it was much closer, only half a second. Both of you did a good job but need to improve your time. Now the third part. I will call out in turns and the person whose name I call out will instantly start spamming waterguns and or bubble between the two of you. It is the other person's job to stop it. I will keep count of how many you miss and the person who misses least is the winner. Clear?"

Seeing them nod he called out "horsea.". Instantly, horsea started spamming waterguns all over the place. It was fun since horsea could shoot them out at a faster pace than lapras. lapras for sure missed a few. Especially since horsea made it even more difficult by adding bubble to the mix. Lapras somehow survived and in her turn she spammed out water guns as fast as she could while making it powerful. horsea was now forced to make a dent in the water gun which caused him to slow down immensely since he needed to gather his power for every shot. This way lapras could catch up.

This continued for some time before Ash called out saying that it as lunch time and said that they both needed to work on their respective weaknesses. He said that horsea won but just barely and lapras was almost there. Then he saw horsea celebrate while lapras look a little down. He rubbed lapras's head while both were smiling at a happy horsea who was jumping around in the water. It was things like this that made training fun.

He laid out lunch and then called out to both of them. They had a peaceful lunch of pokefood and trainer's meals on the rocks sitting in the cool breeze. Once lunch was over, they rested for half an hour more before Ash told them "Come on. It's battling time. This is the time when you keep fighting each other. We need to be able to battle and subdue other pokemon when required. This is going to be a buddy on buddy exercize. Enjoy. Just give it your all."

Saying this, he set them up to face each other and watched them battle. It was enlightening. Horsea lost and fainted.

He waited for horsea to wake up after giving him an oran berry. While waiting he was slowly massaging lapras's neck. Once awake he told them their issues and what they could do to change that. He told horsea that he was slow. His accuracy and firing speed was good but his moving speed was slow. Also to get enough power as lapras, he needed more time to gather it which led to lapras troubling him. Also, Lapras with her dragon dance on was faster than even his firing speed which caused him trouble. He needs to think of area hitters, like a bubble spread with a water gun spread. Then slowly build up power in them, this would help him attack lapras.

He also did not use everything in hand, he could have inked lapras since that would ensure that he could dodge lapras. This was something that he should avoid. There is very little honour in a survival fight. When one fights for his life, one fights with everything they have. This is what they have to learn first and that is what they will face the most at wild seas. So he had better get used to it.

He turned to lapras and told her that her accuracy was low. She was not able to hit horsea much. The only reason she won was because horsea got tired and could not dodge the last two water guns. She had more stamina than horsea and would probably end up always having more stamina than horsea but she needed to work on her water gun speed and accuracy. Also for battle since she was aiming at something small like horsea, try to release the water gun as bullets, short fast bursts that can hurt rather than a continuous stream. This would help assess whether she hit her target, since she could stop firing and see and release the bursts almost instantaneously. It would also prevent feedback along the water in the case of moves like thunderbolt etc through the water attack.

This continued for some time. Constantly fighting over and over again both with and without the psychic bands on them. This strained them a lot but this strengthened them a lot. They did not have much to worry about trainers since not many people started at pallet anyway, only those trainers who were sponsored by prof Oak. Also, very few even among those sponsored went off trail near pallet since there were not many pokemon that can be considered strong near pallet.

This continued for about a week. Everyday followed a similar routine. Get up, exercize, then test moves over and over while making them strong. Then lunch, then fight fully as long and hard as you can, then in the evening explore a little before making camp at night. There was a lot of improvement in both of his pokemon.

Pokemon being pokemon grew terribly fast. Their bodies adjusted much faster and grew much faster than humans. Each pokemon had a different growth rate in different things of course but one of the common things was that each pokemon grew larger and fuller depending on their power unless they were some mutation. One of the common examples might be a charizard. A common charizard, an average one was around the height of 5 ft 7 inches. But the stronger a charizard, the more it kept growing with some truly monstrous charizards being upto 10 ft with huge wingspans.

The larger the pokemon, the greater the physical power but it is also possible that the increase in speed will be longer. Smaller pokemon are generally faster and harder to hit unless the larger ones are trained for speed. This was what he hoped to achieve. His lapras was built for speedy travel, it was not built for battle but it could battle easily enough. On the other hand, kingdra were not known for their speed. They were known for their power and their absolute control over the sea. They can create whirlpools very easily and can control them just as easily. Stop storms, calm the waves, they were sea dragons, who could control the seas around them as they get stronger. They had a well of power. But this was not accessible unless they were in the kingdra stage, as a horsea and seadra, they did not have much power. Sure they had what would be counted as a lot of power if trained properly but the jump between a seadra to kingdra stage is as much of a jump from a charmander to a charizard, which was to say a lot. Thus he wanted to train his horsea for speed and accuracy.

Once he got through the speed and accuracy stage, his kingdra would be a monster. With his lapras he went about it in a slightly different manner. His lapras could be a powerhouse. But she did not like fighting. So he went about making her as powerful as possible. Not as combat ready as possible but as physically strong fast and intimidating while also having so much raw power that other pokemon would think twice about fighting her. This way, she would not need to fight much to protect him. Also this would only help both him and her since she would be able to travel much faster while he also would be able to travel much faster on her back. A properly raised fully grown lapras was supposed to be able to beat the speeds of the fastest ships in the league without much difficulty. He wanted his lapras to be so fast that it made the league ships look slow. So he was training her heavily under the dragon dance and psychic bands to build up her physical strength and speed.

With this in mind and watching the rapid progress the two pokemon made, he decided it was time to get his third and fourth pokemon. He had decided to get himself a pidgey and a caterpie. Pidgey was an obvious choice for anyone who wants to considering travel. They were easily available, docile, excellent for carrying people to far away distances and could travel at speeds much faster than any other pokemon. Even dragonite, which when at their best could circle the earth in 16 hours were slower than pidgeot who could reach mach two speeds if trained properly. They were not much slower and it was very close but a pidgeot was a tiny bit faster than a dragonite. The fact that they are naturally able to manipulate air is another thing that stood in their favor. Any traveler would want a pidgeot. He understood the craze about getting rare flying pokemon but honestly he thought it was over-rated when a pidgeot fulfilled all your needs.

The caterpie on the other hand, was a somewhat weird choice for someone who wants to travel. They were not exactly a well sought out pokemon because of the many weaknesses that both caterpie and butterfree had. But there was one thing in which they excelled. Butterfree were very silent pokemon who could learn sleep powder and who could fly. This and the fact that they were more easily available than venonats made caterpie a done deal for Ash. Sleep powder was an incredibly important tool since it could calm raging pokemon and save him without much danger to the pokemon itself. The fact that butterfree could fly was just icing on the cake.

He set out looking for a lone caterpie or pidgey he could capture. They travelled along the water. There was a small stream that drew out of the lake and travelled in the rough direction of viridian. He let out both horsea and lapras and the three of them travelled along the stream.

The walk was pleasant with the sunlight peeking through the leaves and reflecting off of the water. Lapras was enjoying and in a playful mood. She splashed water towards Ash sometimes. Horsea was more silent. He was always the silent one. He was the calm one who just wanted to work and then relax. He got along well with lapras and that was the only saving grace. As the three of them went along the river, Ash kept an eye on the compass so that if they move away from the direction of viridian, he could get back on the path. Along the way, he suddenly heard a scream.

He and his pokemon immediately went running ahead towards the scream and they found a gyaridos attacking a female red-head. She was wearing a yellow top, short blue denim shorts and sneakers. In front of her was a purple star like pokemon. The star like pokemon was facing the huge gyaridos. The gyaridos looked to be newly evolved. It was in an inside stream that was normally too small for the huge sea-serpent pokemon. Ash and his pokemon stopped short at seeing that huge monster.

The gyaridos was a very small one in comparision to usual monsters but that did not make a difference to Ash who had never seen one live. There was something about a gyaridos which sent chills up people's spines. They were huge and the typical sea serpents. They would rage and there was something in their brutish manner that made people afraid of them. The same was true for Ash and his pokemon. His horsea was 1 foot big, the gyaridos was 20 feet long and around 5 feet wide. The comparision was ridiculous. Even his lapras which was his biggest pokemon was only around 5 and a half feet tall.

They stood still till the purple star like pokemon attacked the gyaridos. The female shouted out a command to it saying "Starmie, thunderbolt on the gyaridos." There was a small spark and then a light yellow bolt of thunder emerged from the jewel of the starmie and attacked the gyaridos. The gyaridos roared in irritation and slight pain. This brought Ash and his pokemon out of his stupor. He put on his headphones and immediately said "Lapras, sing and put it to sleep. Horsea, distract it by swimming around and shooting ink into it's eyes. Then use a disable on it to disable any ranged attack that it uses. Go now."

Immediately lapras started to sing. This affected everyone pokemon and human including horsea. Before this could finish, the horsea shot ink into the gyaridos's eyes with good accuracy to which the gyaridos roared in pain. It immediately started gathering energy for some attack that looked like a hyper beam or a dragon rage but horsea disabled it. By this time the sing attack worked and everyone except Ash and lapras fell asleep.

Seeing this, Ash and lapras slowly started pushing the gyaridos into the deeper part of the stream. They slowly did so so that they did not accidentally wake it up. It took them the better part of half an hour before they managed it and the stream pulled the gyaridos further away. Once done, the two of them sat down and sighed. Ash was still in the stream up till his knees, his jeans getting wet, his bag set on the bank leaning against lapras while lapras was behind him with her head on his shoulder. He slowly was scratching her below her chin while thinking about the fact that they managed to avert a gyaridos rage event. Then after five or so minutes of getting over the high and the adrenaline and getting back to normal, they went about waking the others.

First Ash went and woke up horsea along with lapras, this was done by dunking horsea underwater upside down. The sudden drop into the water head first woke horsea up and he came up spluttering. Lapras and Ash were laughing at him and he was a little pissed. He spouted ink at ash who dodged out of the way. Horsea did this three four times, before finally calming down. He looked around for the gyaridos and then Ash said "Nice to see you have your priorities right. We were attacked by a wild gyaridos and the first thing you do is attack your trainer instead of figuring if the gyaridos is around."

On seeing horsea look sheepish, he said "We put him to sleep and pushed him deeper into the stream. The stream pulled him along, he will probably wake up later in a different part of the stream. Now come on, we need to wake up the other two." Saying this, he finally got back on dry land. horsea and lapras watched from the shore when he got that purple star and dragged it along to the water. He knew that it was a starmie and that it was a water psychic pokemon. This was a rare pokemon but it was still a water pokemon and could survive underwater for a long time. He handed starmie to horsea and told him to wake starmie up. The horsea did as told and just pushed starmie with its head into the water and lightly tackled it. The movement and the fall into the water woke starmie up who immediately sprayed a thunderbolt. This hurt all three pokemon and suddenly the place was filled with cries from both Lapras and horsea. This surprised Ash who came running to find out what happened. By the time he reached, Lapras had already hit starmie with four different water guns and horsea had hit it with an ink shot and a bubble. Lapras was getting ready to give it a dragon dance enhanced tackle when Ash shouted "Lapras and Horsea, stop attacking starmie. Starmie, you are safe, the gyaridos moved away, stop attacking my pokemon and they will help you clean up. EVERYONE STOP MOVING NOW!"

The sudden scream stilled every pokemon. Then Ash said "Ok, now that everyone stopped moving, starmie They will clean you up and so that you can see your trainer. Do not attack them. Lapras, clean starmie up from the ink attack please." Seeing the two pokemon nod, Ash slowly walked away towards misty while lapras sprayed a water gun on starmie. When starmie's jewel got clear, she shot out of the water and towards Misty where she saw Ash kneeling down. Seeing starmie coming, Ash got up and said "Hey, wanna wake her up?" starmie nodded. Then ash said "Spray water gun lightly over her face. Try to avoid her clothes. I have moved the important stuff away so nothing should get bad."

Seeing starmie nod, he moved away towards his pokemon and asked them if they were fine. They nodded with lapras cooing a little. Ash nodded back to them and told them he was returning them. He returned them and stuck their pokeballs on his belt. He then took a towel from his bag and started towelling his hair. By this time, the girl had started waking up. She woke up to her starmie showering her face. Then she said "starmie stop now.". Her pokemon stopped and she slowly got up, then as if she remembered what she was last doing she screamed and looked around hastily. She did not see the gyaridos anywhere and relaxed and then she noticed that her things were moved slightly and there was a boy near her. She glanced at him with narrowed eyes and said "Was that you who was commanding your pokemon to attack the gyaridos?". Ash nodded saying "Yea, by the way, I am Ash. I was walking along and heard you scream, so I came running and helped."

She said "I am Misty. What happened to the gyaridos?" to which Ash replied "I put it to sleep and then slowly pushed it further downstream so that it does not awaken near us." Misty nodded. Seeing this Ash continued "I also moved your things around a little seeing as I did not want them getting wet. Check them out. I am going on ahead."

Misty nodded and looked into her things. Seeing everything that she had she said "Thank you Ash. I don't know if I could have handled that but this way is better."

Seeing this Ash just nodded and walked along the stream. He continued walking for some time and when he was sure he was out of sight of Misty, he released his pokemon. lapras and horsea were surprised to be back in the water so soon. But they did not look a gift horse in the mouth. Lapras immediately splashed some water on Ash which he dodged. She pouted and Ash just laughed at her. He then said "Come on, I think it is time that we caught our two friends. It's been too long already and it's almost been half a day." Seeing the two nod, he continued walking keeping an eye on the compass so as to not stray from viridian.

They continued till lunch and did not get lucky. They could not spot a lone pidgey or caterpie. They could not enter a group since the group would attack them and they did not have the strength to fight off many butterfree or pidgey. Also, any pidgey or caterpie that was in a group was one that was not strong enough to live alone or hard-working enough to do the same. He wanted to find a pidgey that would be strong enough to face him and have enough strength of character to not be scared of him. Ditto for the caterpie. With this in mind, he stopped for lunch under the shade of a large tree near the stream and slowly unpacked his goods. Then he made lunch for lapras and horsea calling them out saying "lapras, horsea, food is ready. Come and get it." He set his sandwiches and watched as lapras and horsea came to eat. They started eating together as he wondered what he would be doing after lunch. Probably training his pokemon. His mind was still on how to get a caterpie and a pidgey. And so he continued.


	3. Chapter 3: The third companion

**A Wanderer at Heart**

 **A.N: The third chapter of the story as soon as I am done writing it. Here it goes. And people, wait for another three chapters (atleast) before I introduce the fifth pokemon and a few more before I look into the sixth. So you have got time. If there is any pokemon you would like to see for the guardian of Ash's team, then leave it as a review with a reason as to why you think that is the case. Again, please don't say Charizard, Dragonite, Electrabuzz, Magmar. Read on and as always, constructive criticism and suggestions are always welcome.**

 **Chapter 3 – The third companion**

It was a few days since Ash left to search for a pidgey and a caterpie. He found a few but none of them were to his satisfaction since they always ran away when he approached them. This disheartened him since if they were too scared to approach him in any manner, they probably did not want to get caught and travel with him which meant that there was no particular use catching them. This was sad and he kept walking towards viridian while thinking this. On the plus side, the training of his lapras and horsea was going well. Their water guns had gained a lot of power. Horsea's water-gun was almost as strong as Lapras's was a few days ago but he had worked a lot at it. Apart from that, the first thing that Ash asked done during training after ensuring that the basics are done is to teach horsea dragon-dance while teaching lapras ice shard. Neither move was close to perfected.

Lapras still got only one out of two shots of ice shard working. But was slowly getting there. Horsea on the other hand was learning dragon dance much faster. This helped greatly because he could now start using it repeatedly to increase his speed, strength and his draconic powers. He would become a dragon eventually and if he had a huge amount of draconic power beforehand itself, then on evolution he would have much more. He would need to gain control over it but since he was tiny right now, his physical prowess was based a lot on dragon dance. He was already decent in dodging but his main advantage was small size which will not be the case eventually. So he needs to develop dodging manoeuvres before he became a seadra and then a kingdra. Ash lucked out that lapras knew dragon dance and was a good teacher between her knowledge of the move and her telepathy to communicate feelings across.

Lapras on the other hand worked on accuracy and body speed. Her power with water gun kept increasing. But the main part of her training was the dragon dance enhanced movement. She could keep it up constantly for almost an hour now which indicated that he draconic reserves are growing at a huge pace as well as the fact that her muscles were developing faster. That could be reflected in her height considering that she became six feet and after a little bit of growth, Ash can treat her as a full-fledged adult. It was interesting to see how she grew so fast. The growth was seen in a somewhat similar rate on horsea as well. While he still did not have the experience, Ash fully expected to see a seadra and a powerful one within two months.

Anyway, he was walking down the stream towards viridian. The sun was shining and it was around 10 in the morning. He was worried because he was slowly running out of food and if this continued, then within a week he would have to get to the pokemon centre and he really wanted to work with a pidgey before that.

Ash was frustrated and lapras seeing this headbutted him. Horsea as always being the stoic one and not having much of a connection with Ash and more of a connection with lapras snorted. Lapras gave horsea a small glare and then slightly splashed Ash with a water gun. This brought him out of his thoughts. On looking at his compass he noticed that he was heading in the direction of viridian and would reach viridian in a day at the most.

This did not please him. He continued walking when he saw something that set his hopes up. There was a pidgey on a tree near the bank. It was a fairly small pidgey. Not very distinctive in terms of body. But what caught his attention was the attitude. Pidgey was looking at him as if she did not see him as a threat. She looked at him as if she was interested to see someone here. This was fairly obvious since while the stream flowed near the edge of viridian it was way off the followed path.

Ash said to lapras and horsea "Hey, if we play this right, we have our third companion pokemon." Seeing this lapras looked determined while horsea glared a little. He did not like it much when new people joined. He felt they were a good happy team and new people would break that up. But then again, he obeyed Ash since Ash was training him, and training him well at that. He glared a little but kept a determined face on.

Ash looked at this and said "Now, we will approach the pidgey and battle her. She seems to be interested enough. I will talk to her first."

Saying this, Ash approached the treeline near the shore. Pidgey still looked at him with interest. Ash said "Hey, I am looking for a hard-working pidgey that wants to travel and grow strong. I did not find anyone of interest yet. Are you interested?"

Pidgey cocked her head but said nothing. Ash nodded as he expected that. He had to prove his words and till then they will be words only. So Ash said "I am assuming you are. I challenge you to a battle pidgey."

Saying this, Ash backed away and then looked at his pokemon. He said "Horsea, come up front."

Lapras looked a little down at that but he said "Next time it will be you lapras. This is horsea's battle."

Lapras nodded while horsea came as close to the shore as he dared to. Pidgey meanwhile chirped and flew into the air beating her wings. She flew patterns in the sky around horsea. Then pidgey suddenly started off with a gust. This was aimed to kick horsea out of the water.

Ash shouted "Horsea, duck, then stagger water-guns. Attack that pidgey."

Horsea dodged by moving into the water. Then coming to the surface started staggering her water guns to attack pidgey. But pidgey managed to dodge them through various manoeuvres that seemed somewhat difficult to pull off. Ash was impressed. After seeing that the strategy was not working, Ash said "Try a bubble spread horsea to keep control of where pidgey can move, then set up a smoke screen so that pidgey cannot see where she is going."

Horsea nodded and set up a bubble spread in the air. The bubbles in a bubble attack stayed in the air in a somewhat random manner trying to restrict the movement of the pidgey. Then he set up a smoke screen to hide the bubbles. But pidgey was not having any of this and she was using a gust attack.

The gust attack was moving away the smoke screen. And the bubbles were also being moved away.

At this instant Ash shouted "She is occupied now horsea, attack her with water-gun and ink shots while she can't move." Horsea instantly attacked her and hit pidgey. He also staggered ink shots with the water gun which affected pidgey's sight. This affected the pidgey since horsea's water guns now hurt. Along with that his ink somehow got into her eyes. She flapped in the same place after dodging two more shots to try to avoid hitting trees but the water-gun barrage finally hurt her too much. She fainted and started falling towards the ground.

A fall at that level would hurt her so Ash immediately threw out the pokeball to capture her. It pinged and did not fight since pidgey was unconscious. Ash immediately was happy that he caught a pokemon and said "Good job horsea, you fought well. We need to work on setting up the mines and smoke-screen faster. Apart from that your accuracy and speed was good. We just caught a new pokemon."

Horsea nodded glad to have won his fight. He kept losing to lapras and these days it was getting more and more difficult to win against lapras. She was just growing much faster. Ash had told him that while horsea would learn moves much faster, he was not a fully evolved pokemon and thus his body would not change that much faster but this was ridiculous. So finally winning a battle did a lot for him.

Lapras cooed and headbutted horsea. Ash in the meantime, went and picked up his pokeball. He still could not believe that he had caught a pidgey. He searched his pack for a berry and after finding it released pidgey who was still unconscious. He called lapras who came over along with horsea, and asked her to slowly spray water-gun so that he could clean the ink off of pidgey. Lapras did this and he then fed pidgey a simple berry that gave her energy and healed her body.

Then he decided to let her wake up slowly. So he instantly kept her pokeball on his belt while he carried her on top of his bag. He continued walking happily along the stream with lapras and horsea, his mood changed instantly since he had caught one of the two pokemon he wanted.

He told lapras and horsea "We got our third companion. Now we head into viridian forest. That is the place where we can get caterpie in abundance. I don't know what is going to happen there but I hope we will be fine. Just be careful that we don't hurt some pokemon or intrude on their territory. There have been a lot of tales regarding bee-drill swarms chasing trainers and attacking them. We want to avoid that, ok?"

Seeing them nod he said "Good, now if we follow the stream we should be riding along the edge of viridian and into the viridian forest. This seems like the way to go right now. Lapras, I am going to sit on you. You are grown up enough that this will be an effective test. The moment it begins to become uncomfortable tell me and I will get down and walk. Is that clear?"

Lapras was excited and nodded. He then slowly packed his things in the bag and then walking up to lapras holding the pidgey in his hands, he sat on top of the shell on lapras's back. There he asked "Is everything fine so far or am I too heavy?" Lapras just sent a good feeling and he assumed it was fine. He turned to horsea and said "Horsea, considering that lapras is carrying me, she will not be able to defend herself much when she is travelling. It is your job to defend her from the various pokemon whom we will meet on the stream. Is that clear?"

Horsea gained a resolute look on his face and nodded. Ash then said "Ok, both of you, I am taking off your psychic bands. After the practice we had without them on and the fact that you lot have already adjusted to the first level, this should be a relatively short and easy journey. Stop me at any instant if there is something that I need to know or something that is in our way and we will see how to go around it. If not, then continue. Is that clear?"

Seeing them both nod again, Ash said in an excited manner "Now lets' travel. If this is a success, then after lapras grows a little more and horsea evolves, we can travel out to sea."

Lapras cooed excitedly, the feeling being contagious since she was always connected to Ash's mind. This began their journey to viridian. They wanted to visit the edge of viridian and move into viridian forest. Get that caterpie and train it for as long as their food lasted before they came back to viridian. During this time, the Pidgey woke up and saw that it was in Ash's hand. Ash seeing the Pidgey wake up said "Lapras stop and move to shore. Pidgey woke up and she deserves an introduction."

Lapras slowly moved to the shore. Meanwhile Pidgey did not seem in any sort of hurry to move away from Ash which was a little surprising. She just looked around slowly. Once they reached the shore, Ash got off and asked the Pidgey to hop off. She did and stood staring at the large human and a large lapras. She could even see the horsea that she battled in the water and chirped at the horsea. The horsea snorted back.

She ruffled her feathers and turned to Ash with an expectant look still without any form of fear. Ash smiled in an amused manner, feelings he shared with Lapras. He said "Hello Pidgey, I am Ash. This is lapras and this is horsea. I caught you and am your trainer now. My training will be hard but will make you much stronger and eventually a Pidgeot. Do you want to travel with me?"

Pidgey just chirped with an inquisitve look on her face. Getting an image of walking into the distance with a question mark at the distance as well as doubtful feelings from lapras Ash asked "Do you want to know what my dream is?" Seeing Pidgey nod he continued "My dream is to travel and see the world with my friends. For that I need strong friends and I will train them up. I will also help my friends achieve their own dreams. Horsea here wants to become a strong kingdra and battle different people, which I will help him do. Lapras just wants to live a peaceful life with a lot of travel. We are similar that way. What do you want to do?"

Seeing a picture of a pidgeot and a family in his mind from lapras he said "So you want to become a Pidgeot and eventually start a family eh?" Seeing Pidgey nod he said "I can make you a Pidgeot. That should not be too hard. Also, once we are done travelling you can start a family near our house. It is close enough to viridian and has some pidgeotto and a fearow. You can help train up whoever you fancy there and start a family at home. All my friends stay close to me. That is what I am trying to achieve. Is that ok?" Pidgey bobbed his head and jumped onto Ash's shoulder.

Ash said "I am going to scan you now. Give me a minute and stand down. I cannot scan you on my shoulder Pidgey." Pidgey jumped down again and Ash took our his pokedex. His pokedex said **"Pidgey has an extremely sharp sense of direction. It is capable of unerringly returning home to its nest, however far it may be removed from its familiar surroundings. This Pidgey is female and knows the moves Tackle, sand attack, gust. For more information check the pokemon's individual information page."**

Ash read the details and said "Well, apart from your attitude, you seem to be a pretty generic Pidgey. We will make you stronger. My training will make you stronger faster and get you to evolve sooner. I want you to stop your evolution till you have learnt the attacks I want you to learn. Pidgey learn attacks faster in the earlier stages with the later stages of the evolution adding more power. So you will not evolve till I ask you to. Is that ok?"

Pidgey made a face at that but on seeing Ash saying that once she has learnt the attacks she will evolve and this will only help make her stronger she nodded her head. Ash then asked "Now, can you fly or are you too tired?" Pidgey instantly took off on her wings flapped a little and came back down. Ash laughed at her enthusiasm and said "Ok, guess you are flying above us then. Don't stray too far or someone will eat you up. Anyway, come here. Let me put a psychic band on you so that you can exercise while flying."

Pidgey obediently came up to him and waited while he rummaged in his bag for the psychic band. He set it up on Pidgey and smiled a little when he saw Pidgey suddenly become stiff. He got Pidgey to slowly move her wings so that she can get used to the stiffness and then said "Ok, guess it is time we get back to travelling. Pidgey fly a little above lapras, I will be on her back, and horsea will be protection duty for lapras. Lets go.". He got back after packing his bag and sat on lapras. Lapras licked his cheek and then after waiting for horsea and Pidgey started to swim at a pace that Pidgey could keep up at with the psychic band on.

They stopped for lunch after sometime. They had travelled on the stream and continued on to Viridian. At the pace they were going, and the stops for training and stuff, they would reach Viridian in five days which made Ash happy since he would be able to train his Pidgey before going to get food in Viridian. If he managed to get a caterpie before then, it would be brilliant but if not then no issues since he could always get one from Viridian forest. He, for now was just happy at seeing the various pokemon he saw float by.

Horsea was very protective and careful. He did not let any pokemon come very close to lapras. But on Ash's say so, he let them swim close by. He did not bully them away with his water gun. This led to some very interesting encounters where he saw a shelder and a krabby near the shore on the stream. Some goldeen swam close to him and swam around the lapras a little before they also left. A lot of magikarp came near them and splashed very heavily. Ash almost got wet a few times. A Pidgey or two even flew down to see them more closely. Ash's Pidgey though again kept vigil a little to ensure that no pokemon can reach lapras.

Lapras was enjoying the ride. She liked travelling and especially with passengers. For her it was just like her pod moving around. She considered this group her pod and was very happy. That happiness was infectious since she broadcast it to all the members of the pod. At times she would splash Horsea or spray Pidgey with a light water gun. She would run ahead suddenly and dive a little before coming back to leap off the water a little. She was basically enjoying herself and Ash was enjoying with her. The journey between the trees with the sunlight peeking in between, clean dark blue waters, lots of pokemon near them was a very beautiful trip and further enforced in Ash's mind his desire to travel.

When they finally stopped for lunch it was a mixed issue. They stopped mainly because Pidgey got too tired. It was not exactly his fault considering that he flew for almost three hours straight straining against the psychic band but that kind of stamina was not enough. He needed to get stronger. Lapras was still happy and cooing while headbutting Ash. Horsea being the calm guy that he was, sat watching nearby with a twinkle in his eyes at how Ash was being pestered by Pidgey and Lapras.

They had lunch consisting of the usual trainer food and then began training. Ash said "Pidgey, I am giving you five more minutes to rest while I instruct them on their moves. After that we will be working with you." He then turned to Horsea and asked "Did you get dragon-dance?" Horsea nodded it's head while looking at him. Ash then smiles and says "We do not have much more to perfect now. Right now I would suggest getting back on the psychic band, keeping dragon dance on as long as you can and perform the usual physical exercises while constantly aiming water-gun at that rock. You should not miss that rock. Once you are sure of accuracy, I would suggest start building up power. Water gun in bursts. You got that right?" Seeing Horsea nod again, he said "Well, you are up. Here is the psychic band switched on. It is above the previous setting so you will have difficulty, go for it.". Horsea went to complete her exercises for the day.

Ash then turned to Lapras and said "Your water gun seems to be good, both speed and accuracy. How is Ice-shard coming up?" Lapras sent an image of one out of two ice-shards. Ash said "You are getting at least one shard right? That is good. The trick is freezing it Lapras. Manipulation of Ice type energy in your body will take time for you since you are still growing up so don't worry about it too hard. The physical part of it is same as horsea for you too. I would suggest you alternate between water-gun and Ice shard at that rock." Ash said , pointing at a different rock from the one he assigned to Horsea. He continued saying "Maybe when you use the energies next to each other, you will be able to identify the difference between them. I want to get Ice-shard ready today Lapras, even if it is slow in forming. Try to form it slowly first, then once you can form it at will but slowly, we will build the speed up. Ok?" Lapras sent him an image of a frozen rock and a nod. Ash smiled, pet her behind her horn while attaching the psychic band and said "That is the spirit lapras, keep it up. Rest when you are tired. Tell horsea to do the same. Now I will go see the Pidgey."

He walked up to the still tired Pidgey. He took out his bottle and dropped a little water into pidgey's open beak. He said "You are tired from flying at a leisurely pace while under resistance for two hours. I want you to be able to fly at a significantly fast pace under resistance for upto 12 consecutive hours. That is when I will be able to believe that you can withstand a hurricane without throwing me off. Do you understand why I made you do that?"

Pidgey got a determined look in her eyes and nodded. Then she went back to panting. Ash said "I am not going to reduce your psychic band since it is good to get used to the resistance. You Pidgeys heal really fast and are always used to resisting against the wind so this should not be too bad. When it gets bad you let me know and I will remove it immediately. This will further strengthen up your wings and body so that it will be easier to learn the more physical moves. Once you are able to move without issues in level one, then we will remove it and start the more physical moves. Till then, we will be learning the special moves. The first move is gust. Can you do it on this branch Pidgey?"

Pidgey instantly started flying and flapping her wings. It took her a few flaps before she was able to blow a gust at the branch. She also could not limit it to the branch. Ash looked at her and said "This is where we will start. There are two families of moves that you can learn from this kind of air manipulation. The first is the more precise air cutter and air slash. The second is the more wild whirlwind and hurricane. Both of them give you a better control over the wind to be able to learn tail wind. I want to start with the air slash. To do that, mostly they collect the energy in a ball near their beaks and then toss it but there are other variants possible. I want to be able to launch an air-slash from the wings with the flap of the wings at will in any direction. For that, we will be learning to control it. I want you to be able to perform the gust attack with a single flap of your wings. For that, feel the energy flowing in your wings when you perform the gust attack. Feel how it fills your wings, then try to collect that energy faster in your wings. The faster you collect it, the faster the gust attack forms. Did you understand what I am saying?"

Pidgey nodded her head carefully while slowly flapping her wings again and starting her gust attack. She observed her move and built up the attack slowly. Then she released it, she tried that a few more times before she nodded. Ash asked her "Did you understand how your energy fills your wing for a gust attack?". She nodded so Ash continued saying "Now, try to make it fill faster. In a fewer wingflaps. That should let you do the attack quicker. Also, keep doing it over and over till the energy gets low. Then take a break to refresh and do it again. Try to reduce the number of flaps you need for the gust attack to a single flap. Once done and you can do it, we will progress to the next step."

Ash raised his voice and said "People train hard. We are resting here for the day. We will train till late into the night and rest. Tomorrow we are not training much, just the usual physical where we travel under the resistance bands."

He thought that his journey so far was good. He saw a lot of pokemon, saw some beautiful places. He still did not get the caterpie that he wanted and did now know if he would get it before he went into Viridian forest but he managed to get the Pidgey he wanted. His third pokemon was caught and his first two were growing strong. His third also was slowly picking up the pace. Life was going good and he was slowly on his way to Viridian. He sat watching his pokemon train thinking about what he would do once he got to Viridian.


End file.
